I know this is sorta small potatoes around here, but Squash got his second qualifying leg towards his RN today.

What I am really proud of, though, is not so much the ribbons or the qualifying score, but this: On the far wall of the room the ring was in, opposite where the course started, there were a bunch of pictures and ribbons from students of the venue hanging all over the wall. It looked like a clown threw up on the wall. Squash is a nosy dog, and in a new environment he likes to check things out, and we obviously weren't allowed in the ring before our turn, and he became utterly fascinated by the clown vomit the second we stepped foot into the ring and my stomach just sank.

Somehow we got through the first couple of exercises although he was just zeroed in on the wall. But then... I actually just let him sniff them for a second since we were right next to them, then asked and was permitted to redo the exercise we were at, and he completely bounced back and completed the course like a champ. He even ignored a couple of dogs snarking outside the ring a few exercises later.

I'm happy to have the leg and I'm happy to have the ribbons, but I'm mostly super proud of him for getting himself together. It's really hard for him and something we've really struggled with. VICTORY.

I know this is sorta small potatoes around here, but Squash got his second qualifying leg towards his RN today.

What I am really proud of, though, is not so much the ribbons or the qualifying score, but this: On the far wall of the room the ring was in, opposite where the course started, there were a bunch of pictures and ribbons from students of the venue hanging all over the wall. It looked like a clown threw up on the wall. Squash is a nosy dog, and in a new environment he likes to check things out, and we obviously weren't allowed in the ring before our turn, and he became utterly fascinated by the clown vomit the second we stepped foot into the ring and my stomach just sank.

Somehow we got through the first couple of exercises although he was just zeroed in on the wall. But then... I actually just let him sniff them for a second since we were right next to them, then asked and was permitted to redo the exercise we were at, and he completely bounced back and completed the course like a champ. He even ignored a couple of dogs snarking outside the ring a few exercises later.

I'm happy to have the leg and I'm happy to have the ribbons, but I'm mostly super proud of him for getting himself together. It's really hard for him and something we've really struggled with. VICTORY.

Did a bit of tracking with Fred today and he was so not feeling it. Need the trainers advice really... He's "track happy" and just wants to sniff and not really bothered by the goal. Tried treats, tug and tripe. He liked the tripe most of all, but was more interested in skipping the scent and going for the boyfriend.

In other news, we are signed up to start his bronze canine good citizen certificate in feb!! Found a dog club about 45 mins away and they do evening classes! Can get him doing agility too in time

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"Dogs are our link to paradise. They do not know jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing wasn't boring, it was peace."

Bodhi is the opposite of ignorance, the insight into reality which destroys mental afflictions and brings peace.

Aheheh, thanks, I was bracing for "You let him do WHAT on the course?!" from people, but... honestly, I've done the thing where I try to force him to complete a course despite being distracted by something like that and it is just an absolute disaster. So I decided "welp, if I don't let him sniff we're probably done for anyway, so as long as we're standing here I might as well just let him do it and if we lose points, we lose points."

I was at a Rally trial this weekend. I wanted to get 2 Qs to finish up Cohen's RE title.

Our first run caught me off guard - I didn't realize we were next. So I rushed to the start, Cohen was distracted and uninterested but I started anyways. The first sign was a send over jump - Cohen's favourite. I started, cued a heel, told her to out & jump but she wasn't paying close enough attention to hear me, so she wandered right past the jump at my side. I ask to re-do the station, but there are no re-dos in Excellent so we NQd at the first station. Yay...

Then I left the trial to go practice some flyball with my team. Cohen ran well solo, but was distracted and chasing a bit while passing. I was feeling pretty disheartened with her group performance right after our NQ at Rally aka The Easiest Sport Ever.

Back to the Rally trial to do one more run. I'm a bit better prepared this time. Cohen was a bit spaced out, and I felt like she may have dropped her bum on a left finish - forward so I wasn't sure we Qd... again. We were the last team to go and right after us was the ribbon presentation. I wasn't sure if we should have gone back into the ring for the presentation, since, yeah, I thought we might have NQd. I asked, and the steward chuckled and said yeah, we Qd, come on in. Turns out we had a perfect score, and scored HIC, and beat another lovely team who scored 100 because we were faster.

The perfect score almost makes up for the NQ at the start of the day. Though I would have preferred to QQ. God, I'm such a perfectionist.

Started our Intro to Nosework class last night and I was super happy with how it all went! I think Rider will really enjoy it. There were a few times when he was really using his little sniffer. I was nervous that he was going to have focus issues with other dogs, but he locked onto me for most of the class, and I was very pleased.

Our last hide was a box on top of a box tipped upright, so the hide was just above his nose when he looked up. When he found it, he was circling the box and sniffing, and the trainer goes "So, how scared is he going to be when he knocks that over?" And just as I said, "Moderately scared," Rider grabbed the corner of the box and dropped it on the ground. We were all very amused.